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Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Maximum Ride, or Roswell.
Chapter 9
More than a Little Freaked
Fang's POV
I admit it: I didn't see that one coming. The flock and I stared at the people surrounding us in a mix between horror and shock. Total fainted. Nudge and the Gasman were terrified, especially Nudge. We were all more than a little freaked out.
I think we were all thinking the same thing, and Iggy whispered our single, worse fear into my ear: "The School!"Max shot me a look that asked shouldn't we be getting out of here?
I nodded slightly. Gazzy picked up Total, then he and Nudge got as close to me as possible. Iggy slowly moved behind them.
"Now!" I shouted and snapped out my wings. That hurt.
Even with all the people in the room, I somehow managed to manoeuvre through them and get to the couch, where I grabbed Max and soared past. That took only a few seconds, but that was all it took to send exploding pain through my body. I felt all the cuts on my back re-open and my ribs killed, and carrying Max didn't help. I flew past Iggy and handed Max to him as we soared side by side.
I slowed down after another second. Sure, we could all heal pretty fast, but I'd been hurt only hours before. I shouldn't have been flying at all, and now I knew why. Iggy started to slow as well, but I told him to keep going.
Not that it mattered. We didn't make it to the broken glass wall anyways. Edward, Carlisle, and Jasper got in our way before we could.
"Wait!" Carlisle shouted.
We didn't listen. With the biggest exit blocked, the next option was up the stairs and out a window, if we could.
I was falling farther behind by the time I got to the top of the stairs. Nudge was leading the way and I was the last in our line-up. I was getting dizzy and almost ran into a doorpost, but I somehow managed to stay aloft for the moment. Even if I was caught, I could provide enough of a stall for the others to get out. As far as I could tell, none of the vampires could fly. If we could get outside, we would be free.
Another wave of dizziness came over me and I shook my head to get rid of it as we rounded the corner to go up the last flight of stairs, and I crashed into them. I thought I was going to pass out from the pain (not that I would ever admit it), but the rush of adrenalin when I saw the mob of vampire prototypes behind me, and coming up fast. I scrambled to my feet and struggled to take off again, then I heard a scream from Nudge at the top of the stairs and decided to run up instead.
When I reached the top, I saw why she screamed. In front of each doorway in the hall was one of the vampires, and Renesmee was blocking what remained of the glass wall. Boy, could they move fast!
The flock had stopped at the top of the stairs by the time I came staggering up to join them. Iggy had set Max on her feet.
"We're trapped," Gazzy whined. "Just like at the School."
"Not yet," I whispered back. "One can't catch all of us. We'll fly straight ahead—at Renesmee. I'll go first."
"But Fang…" Max said.
"Don't bother Max. I'll only slow you down."
"I'm in charge!" she hissed. "We're not splitting up!"
"I know you're in charge. That's why you have to make it."
Before she had a chance to argue, I jumped into flight and sped forward, straight for Renesmee. I felt the flock take off behind me a few seconds before Max darted ahead of me. She was trying to keep me out of danger. That was stupid of her. I couldn't let her do it.
Despite the pain it caused me, I flapped as hard as I could to get to Renesmee before Max did. My vision quickly got a little dim and out of focus, but whatever.
Then something very strange happened: Renesmee moved. I wondered for half a second why she did it, but then I had my answer. She was making room for the freaky green rubber shield thingy that took her place. I knew it was rubbery because me and Max both hit it at full speed and bounced off. Uh-oh.
I picked myself up off the floor (with quite a bit of difficulty) and quickly took in our surroundings. We were surrounded by twelve vampires and one werewolf. Not a good place to be when you were us.
I tensed, ready to fight to the death (which I knew wouldn't take very long, considering I was hurt, Max was hurt, and no matter what any of us did, we couldn't hurt at least twelve of them), and I waited for what seemed like forever, but was in reality only a few seconds. Finally, Carlisle stepped up.
"I think there has been a misunderstanding," he said calmly. "We're not going to hurt you."
"Not yet," Gazzy said. "We know that you want us alive to do more of your freaky experiments on us. We're not stupid."
"Don't make 'em mad, Gaz," I warned in a tired whisper.
"I honestly haven't the faintest idea what you mean," Carlisle insisted. "I can understand that you believe every person you meet would like to experiment on you, but even if that were the case with us, how can we do more experiments if we have never done any in the first place?"
I saw Max give him her 'it's pointless to deny it because we already know' look before she said, "Don't bother denying it. We're already on to you."
"There is nothing to be 'on to' us about," Edward stated as though it were hard proven fact.
Iggy sighed in annoyance. "I wish they would stop sending people who try to convince us they're something they're not."
"We're not trying to be anything that we're not," Emmett said. "I told you straight out that we're vampires. That's our secret."
"They're obviously new prototypes," Nudge whispered to me. I wasn't so sure, but I wasn't about to rule it out, either. It would make sense.
"It wouldn't make sense at all," Edward said, as if he were in my mind.
"Come again?" I asked. I'm not usually the one to ask questions or say what I'm thinking, but this guy had just creeped me out.
"I'm not trying to creep you out," he added, again creeping me out. "I'm just trying to figure out what your problem is. Why are you so scared of us?"
Duh! You're VAMPIRES!
"We already told you that." There he goes again. "But I can tell there's more to it than that."
I stayed silent, but once again, Edward guessed my thoughts.
"What is the 'School'? Is that why you're so afraid?"
I didn't answer him. None of the flock did.
Edward stepped closer to me and I took a clumsy and painful step back from him. He held up his hands to show he meant no harm, but I didn't believe him. He had hurt me once, who's to say he wouldn't do it again?
"I'm not going to hurt you Fang."
The words sounded a bit strange and muffled in my ears, and I wished he would stop rocking back and forth in front of me.
He reached out to put a hand on my shoulder and I pulled away. "Stay 'way from me," I mumbled stupidly, feeling like I was going to barf. I felt myself bump into Nudge behind me.
"You don't have to worry. You're safe here," Edward tried to assure me.
I didn't feel very safe. Not for myself or for the flock.
Max pushed in front of me. "Get away from him," she ordered. "Leave him alone."
"Look, we're just trying to help. You kids obviously have some issues that you feel you have to take care of by yourselves, but you don't have to." Edward's eyes were sympathetic.
"You don't know anything about us!" Max spat.
I stepped forward to agree with her but stumbled instead. Iggy helped me get steady again.
"It's true that there are some gaps to be filled," Edward admitted. "Like what you were doing in our house in the first place, what the School is, what Erasers and Flyboys are, what exactly it is you guys are scared of, and why you, Max, have a second voice in your head. But we can work on that in time. Right now—"
I didn't hear the rest. I was dizzy again, and I put a hand on my head to try to clear it. Max shot me a concerned look. "Fine," I mouthed to her, but she didn't look convinced. Neither did Carlisle.
"Fang," he said gently. "You're not ready to be up and about. Your body still needs time to recover. Here is where it is safest for you to do so."
"I don't need your hospitality!" I spat weakly. "We've had enough of your lies and tricks to fall for that again."
The last time we had accepted strangely kind hospitality, it had come back to bite us in the back. That wasn't about to happen again.
"We're not trying to trick anyone," Edward insisted. "That's why we told you, so that you wouldn't feel tricked or threatened. We're not trying to capture you."
"And yet," Max said, "you're preventing us from leaving."
Carlisle seemed to think about this, then nodded. He stepped out of our way. With somewhat confused looks, the others followed his lead. The green rubbery shield disappeared, and we were given a clear path to the outside world. Max eyed them warily, then glanced at me, as if to ask Should we go for it? She did that a lot lately, as if she wasn't sure of herself. That was very unlike Max.
I tried to read Carlisle's eyes to see if he meant what he implied or if it was just a trick to get our guard down. But I couldn't tell what was going on behind those topaz eyes, so finally I decided that we should wing it, quite literally for us. I gave Max a very small nod that only she usually saw, and we (the whole flock) spread our wings. We hesitated before starting off at a very cautious walk towards the broken wall.
The younger two got to the edge first and looked back once more to make sure we were coming, then jumped into the air and hovered, waiting for the rest of us. Iggy followed after them, but Max and I stayed behind for a moment longer, expecting them to suddenly lunge at us with food on the brain. But they didn't, and we joined our flock outside the oversized, broken wall/window.
Still none of them made a move towards us, though some—particularly Jacob, Renesmee, Edward, and Carlisle—looked disappointed, and perhaps a little concerned. If only Angel were here, she would be able to tell if they were sincere. If only Angel could look into their minds and see all their secrets, tell us if they were our friends (bad choice of words; how about allies instead?) or our enemies. If only Angel…
I turned away at the same moment as Max, taking off with our flock with no idea of where we were going or what we would do next. That was all good; you know, the normal for us. Until we were attacked, which, you know, is also normal for us.
